


Number-One Fan

by Edonohana



Category: Misery - Stephen King
Genre: 666 words exactly, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 08:11:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20945138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: Paul goes to a book signing.





	Number-One Fan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [draculard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/gifts).

Paul was surrounded by Misery. Everywhere he looked, there were creamy heaving bosoms and deep dark eyes and flowing chestnut hair. Also there were bees, flying ominously in expensive black-and-gold embossing across the cover of _Misery’s Return_.

_I must be the first writer ever to wish my publisher hadn’t spent quite so much money on promoting my book, _he thought, and dragged his gaze away from the giant posters that lined the bookshop and back to the fan in front of him. 

She was, thank God, the last. His fingers felt like the shape of his pen was permanently molded into them. She leaned over his table, looking unsettlingly _hungry._ All the fans did. 

_And who else loved Misery that much?_

Paul pushed away the thought. She was just a fan, not Annie. There was no real resemblance, apart from that this fan was also a heavy-set, middle-aged woman. And maybe something about the hair, which was the wrong color but similarly unkempt. 

He forced himself to smile. “Who shall I make it out to?”

She leaned forward. He could smell her breath, a foul unbrushed odor. A lock of her hair fell forward, and it too stank. It was matted with some dried, lumpy substance, as if it had fallen into a bowl of soup she’d been eating and she’d just left it there.

“I’m your number-one fan,” she said.

The face was different but the dull eyes and slack flesh were Annie’s. She was dead but not gone, risen from the grave to possess one of his fans.

“You dirty bird,” she said. “You never were grateful for what you had. I gave you a typewriter, and you did nothing but whine about the missing n, t, and e. You have nine whole fingers left, and you whine about the one you lost. Well, I’ll give you something to whine about.”

The Annie-fan reached into her purse and took out a pair of gardening shears.

His throat too dry to scream, Paul shoved himself back from the table, grabbing for his canes. A life-size cardboard figure of Misery Chastain toppled, followed by a stack of books as he fell against them. He scrabbled on the floor, seeking and failing to find purchase, then snatched up one of the heavy hardcovers. He’d shoved that story down the bitch’s throat once. If she came any nearer, he’d brain her with it.

“Paul!” A woman rushed toward him. Not Annie. She was small, gray-haired, bird-boned. He couldn’t remember her name, but he knew who she was. She owned the bookshop.

He looked around him. Annie—the fan—was gone, vanished as if she’d never existed. 

The bookshop owner stammered apologies as she offered assistance, but Paul managed to get himself off the floor. He had to be twice her weight, and he’d only pull her down with him. 

“Not your fault,” he told her. “I tripped. It happens. I promise not to sue.”

That only made her more embarrassed. She shot darting glances at his prosthetic leg, then away. Her gaze fixed on the downed Misery cut-out, she said, “Can I get you something?” 

Paul stifled the wild desire to respond as Misery and say, “Get my face off this disgusting floor!” Instead, he said, “A glass of water would be nice.”

She hurried off. Paul sat back down, sweating. Once she was out of the room, he traced the shape of his fingers and the scar of his missing thumb, switching off hands to feel them all. It had just been a dream, or a flashback; a scrap of undigested trauma. Ghosts were nothing but metaphors for being haunted, so to speak, by thoughts and feelings that wouldn’t let you go. They weren’t real.

Once he felt calmer, he reached for the open copy of _Misery’s Return_ to replace it in the stack of unsigned books. 

Someone had crossed out the letters n, t, and e, so the title now read as _Mis ry’s R ur _.


End file.
